Thursday 4 July 2013

Meeting another patient

Today I was lucky enough to meet with another patient, we have been in contact for a little while and arranged to meet near where I work. The other guy is from the Brighton area as well and after talking with me on the phone had had a consultation with Dr Shaffer where they agreed that he would get RT in both hands and a foot. (He has Dupuytren's and knuckle pads). 

To be honest there is not that much to report from the meeting, he seemed like a nice guy and it was interesting to compare in person the different pains he gets in his foot to what I used to get and he was asking a few questions about the procedures for radiotherapy, although Dr Shaffer has and will explain this to him in detail at the consultation / first appointment. 

But the interesting thing about chatting with another patient is that sometimes it gets your mind wandering and thinking about different things, sometimes things that I have thought of before and then forgotten and I am unsure if I have written them down. 

For example, on the assumption that patients with a family history are genetically predisposed and those without a family history of these conditions are not genetically predisposed has there been a study to see whether patients with a family history of the conditions show:

a) A higher tendency to get the condition in more than one limb 
b) Have a higher chance of it coming back , for example post surgery. 

I would think that they should at least observe a) in patients but perhaps not b). 

I say this because I think once the scar tissue is there and the cells have transformed it is likely that you are then forever predisposed within that site to the condition as it is likely that there will be residual cells and or alternations to the healing process which these conditions mimic too well. 

After checking there is not information out there on this I will have to see if I can look through all the interviews I have done and all the posts I can find on the International Dupuytren's Society forum and see if I can't either put something together with the number I have got or put a poll on the forum and the Facebook page for the BDS, my Facebook page and the IDS facebook page and see what information we can gather. 

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